Fixing the lacking links is key priority
The Under-19 cricketers of past or present lacking first class exposure and only having played school cricket and some of them only with the Under-23 tournament, which is not a first class game either, is the root cause of juniors still without the world title, their coach, Avishka Gunawardene said.
He has observed the Bangladeshis and the English sides, the upcoming tours for his side, and the mighty Indians, where youngsters come with first class exposure. He labelled that as the only missing link, but measured Sri Lanka has enough talent.
"In my experience as a coach, especially during my last world cup, when we lost in the semis to the Indians, they had two players who had featured in the Indian Premier League (IPL)," Gunawardene, told the Sunday Times, late in the week.
"The only disadvantage these players carry themselves with is no club cricket exposure. These school cricket goes on for six to seven months of the year and also these boys need to look after their studies as well. They don’t have the time to get a feel of club cricket, except for an iota. The main disadvantage they have is that when they are still playing for school, they don’t have the time to join and play club season," Gunawardene, also a captain of his U-19 side in 1993, explained.
The U-19’s will straightaway start their national duty against the Bangladeshis, the title holders of the Youth World Cup on 15 October, and now are in a brief break.
The Gunawardana-coached side of 26 players have already spent three and a half weeks in a bio-secure bubble, worked off at a luxurious hotel, and now will be regrouping for their first assignment. When he took over the reins, he had his squad of 26. He has had a pretty good training camp, he said.
He sounded mission accomplished of breaking the ice between the youngsters and the mixing and mingling, having gone well. They will be returning to the corona enforced bio-secure bubble come Thursday (7), the same day, the defending champions, will be arriving.
The biggest attraction has been a mastermind coach in Mahela Jayawardena, to join the junior and the senior squads to strengthen their chances at their respective world cups. However, the sought-after Lankan, is likely to miss the duty against the Asian neighbours due to his IPL and national duties. But his SSC team-mate hopes he should join for the home series against the English side.
Gunawardene has been proactive and has started to work with his 1993 teammate. “I’ve already spoken with him. Sent him some materials and spoken about the boys, giving him an idea,” he said.
"I’m sure his tactical knowledge will be very helpful. He has obviously coached at the highest level and his standards would be pretty
high. It’s good to have someone like him around, specially, I expect him to share the knowledge with the lads and obviously from a tactical point of view, he’ll be a very good asset to have," the southpaw said of the boon and boost of Jayawardena’s rich value addition.
This would be the first-ever time, the highly successful coach, hyped and hoped of working with any team of the island, has agreed to work with a Lankan side at a team level. Prior to this, it was only over various capacities through committee’s and think-tanks.
Gunawardene, in his last duty with the team at the world cup, had recorded their second best record and best record under his watch of finishing at the semis.
"For the moment, the whole concentration is on the world cup. The selected boys have not played any international cricket for as long as over a year and a half. They have only played a handful of matches from the school circuit. The only two competitive tours versus – Bangladesh and England – are the only match exposure prior to the Caribbean campaign. This is because,
next year’s Asia Cup still remains unconfirmed."
"Though the focus is on white-ball cricket, ideally I would like to see working on a few longer formats as well. But moving forward, the main focus should be identifying talent and producing cricketers. Through that process to prepare them to the next level. While doing that is to win the tournaments, which is the right way forward," he elaborated.
In response to his blueprint for the junior Bengali tigers, he revealed, he will be experimenting a few combinations.
"Yes, while keeping in mind to win the tour, but also this will be an opportunity to test and try them," adding that, "even if the results go the other way, he still will trial and error the combinations."
The hosts’ first assignment since Covid-19, marking the first match practise in the run up to their major test, also has in store a forgotten fact. The series will also lock horns for a battle between coaches of Lankan origin.
Gunawardena, in his second stint with the lion cubs, to take on Naveed Nawaz, the Bengali nation’s youth's world cup winning coach.